The trend of so called ‘Boomerang’ children and elderly parents returning home poses a serious financial threat to working adults and will change the shape of the British household in the future, according to a new study for Birmingham Midshires’ Saving Britain Campaign.

While 63 per cent of adults questioned said they could cover additional day-to-day costs of relatives such as food expenses, only 54 per cent felt they could afford to pay the extra household bills and only a small proportion of Britons say they have sufficient money to pay for further education (14%) or healthcare (11%), two common reasons for relatives moving back home.

And once ‘Boomerang’ relatives move back home, there is little way of moving them back out. Just 9 per cent of adults can afford to help with their child’s first mortgage and only 6 per cent could afford for their parents to live in a retirement home.

Birmingham Midshires’ latest report asked a GB representative sample of 2,000 working adults whether they had the money or savings to look after or support their relatives or dependents.

Key findings reveal:

• Just 14 per cent of working adults have sufficient savings to pay for further education should their children move back home. The proportion of people with savings for their children’s education increased to 31 per cent for those in their forties. People on higher incomes are far better able to cope with additional costs of education - 43 per cent of people earning in excess of £40,000 said they had the money, compared to just 11 per cent of people earning less than £20,000.
• Less than one in ten (9%) of Britons claim they have savings to help their child with the deposit for a first mortgage. Again, the proportion of people that can offer help to their children rises significantly to one in three people that earn over £40,000 (34%).
• Just 19 per cent of working adults claim they have money to pass on to their children. This figure rises to 24 per cent of people over the age of 60.
• Only 7 per cent of Britons said they had sufficient money or savings to allow their parents to live with them. This is a growing trend in Britain and is likely to increase in the future as pensioners struggle to support themselves. Again 31 per cent of Britons earning in excess of £40,000 could house their parents, compared to just 4 per cent of people with incomes below £20,000 per year.
• Only 11 per cent of Britons claimed to have sufficient savings to pay for specialist healthcare should a member of their immediate family (older or younger) require it. This trend was common across every age group of working Britons.
• Only 6 per cent of Britain’s working population said they had enough savings to pay for their parents to live in a retirement home. This proportion of people rises to only one in ten people (10%) in their forties, although 22 per cent of people in the higher tax bracket claimed they could manage this outlay.
• Finally, 24 per cent of Britons surveyed said they could afford none of these events or costs, because neither their salary nor their savings would cover them.

Richard Brown, marketing manager at Birmingham Midshires said: “Adults are not well placed to deal with the effects of an ageing population or to lend the required financial support to children.”

“The Boomerang trend will increase in the future and it poses a threat to adults today. It’s not an easy subject to approach sometimes, but people should sit with their parents and children to discuss money matters early to avoid any difficulties later on.”